- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
The Penrith Panthers have kept their season alive, booking a semi-final date with the Cronulla Sharks next week with a victory over the New Zealand Warriors at Homebush on Saturday. Here are my talking points from the match.
James Maloney stands up in a big way
If there is a more important player to the Panthers than James Maloney, I’d like to hear about him.
Sure, Dallin Watene-Zelezniak played well, Josh Mansour gets their sets off too good starts and Nathan Cleary is strong in the halves. Sure, Maloney is nothing without a forward pack rolling up the middle, but the way he was able to control his side, laying on plays and picking the right options to ensure they would come from behind to beat the Warriors was fantastic.
Maloney is one of those players who just seem to rise for big matches, and his previous finals experiences and record speaks for itself in that regard.
If the Panthers are to go any further in these finals, then the kicking game, the experience, the control, and the expertise of Maloney will be absolutely pivotal.
When it comes to finals, there are few other players you’d take over him.
James gave the Warriors a big old Maloney sandwich (AAP Image/Michael Chambers)
When do the excuses for Shaun Johnson end?
Shaun Johnson is one of the most naturally gifted and talented football players we have ever seen. He shot to fame when he took the Warriors to the grand final in 2011, but since a leg injury a few years ago, he has been all over the place.
You see glimpses of it every now and then. Heck, we saw two months of what could be described as close to his best footy at the start of the year, but it’s fallen away and given in to the usual trend which has developed itself across his career.
Instead of being the best player in the competition – or even the best player in his side – he has only a good game every now and again and comes up with poor options and bad plays far too often.
For a man with his heads up vision, pace, acceleration and footwork, playing so many bad games each year shouldn’t be acceptable.
Yet, Johnson seems to somehow escape a lot of the criticism from the press. Last night, there were rocks and diamonds, but far too many rocks for the amount of good plays he produced.
In fact, after the first 15 minutes, there was virtually nothing to write home about for Johnson and his Warriors.
How many more bad seasons can he have before his position at the Warriors starts to get questioned is the next questions? Surely not many.
No other club would stand for mediocrity year after year after year. He has so many talented players around him, and while you can’t pin all of the blame on Johnson, he doesn’t meet his potential and that should be a big worry.
Viliame Kikau can be the x-factor for Penrith
Viliame Kikau has had a superb season at the foot of the mountains. He has become one of the most damaging ball runners in the competition and knows how to put the big hits on in defence as well.
That was on display last night as he terrorised the Warriors down the left edge at times, finishing up with just 121 metres from 11 carries to go with a couple of offloads and plenty of danger on his runs.
Kikau is quite simply a serious threat to any opposition, and that’s illustrated in the fact he has 75 tackle busts and 40 offloads for the season.
Coming up against the Sharks next week, particularly if Wade Graham is out, running off Maloney, the big second rower could have an absolute field day.
Why do the Panthers still have problems starting games?
It happened again last night. The one sour spot on an otherwise perfect night for Penrith was the way they started the game, struggling to get into things early on.
In the blink of an eye, the Warriors had shot out to a 12-2 lead, only a penalty goal getting the Panthers on the board in the first five minutes.
Even taking that penalty goal showed a sign of negativity – that they were simply happy to score some points early in the game for a change, rather than play from behind.
Regardless, their defence was shredded twice in the next 15 minutes as they played from behind anyway.
Against a brittle Warriors defence, it didn’t take them long to catch up and hit the front, but against a team like the Sharks next week, it’s not going to be so easy.
Start like they did at Homebush yesterday and they are going to be out the back door of the finals quicker than you can click your fingers, because the Sharks aren’t going to open up like the Red Sea and allow them back into the game.
The Sharks are a better defensive outfit than that, and the Panthers know it heading into the game. They can’t afford to play from behind.
End of.
So much promise, so little delivery for the Warriors
While I constantly bemoan about the Dragons and their awful performances during the second half of the season, I’m not quite sure I could handle being a Warriors supporter.
The Panthers (Photo by Matt Blyth/Getty Images)
This is a team who somehow, year after year, manage to play so far below their potential it’s not funny.
And this year would have been worse. For the first two months of the season, they looked like they could have been a premiership force. A team who could run a muck in September and create problems for the top teams in the competition.
Obviously, that hasn’t happened at all.
They have stumbled, bumbled and fumbled their way through the second half of the season and in a lot of ways, it’s fitting that they squandered an early lead to be bombed out of the finals at Homebush last night.
It’s embarrassing frankly. This club should be better than they are, and now, just when they thought they had the answers, it’s back to the drawing board to see if they can finally live up to their potential in 2019.
After another season being burned by them, the majority won’t be expecting much.
Roarers, what did you make of the game? Drop a comment below and let us know.